Picture Story

Ma’s Berry Patch

When I bought my first house one of my favorite things I liked about the place was that it had its own berry patch.

Growing up my mother always took us berry picking every summer. We’d save our old ice cream buckets, pack a lunch in the old Coleman cooler, and set out down an old dirt road in search of the berry patch. Half-way there someone would inconveniently remember that we had forgotten the almighty bug dope, but no one would care because we got to pick and eat berries in the sunshine all day, right? After what seemed like an eternity of dusty, windy dirt road ma would proclaim “Now I bet there’s berries in that spot” and we’d stumble over each other, racing to the berry patch only to discover that there were indeed plenty of berries but we’d forgotten our buckets back at the truck. Not to worry though, looking back towards the truck we could see mom would be halfway to our spot carrying all the buckets. These were some of my fondest memories of my childhood; spending sunny days outside with my mom picking berries.

Now that I have two of my own children one of their favorite things to do is make a picnic outside in the lawn by the berry patch. On sunny days in July when the strawberries glisten in the sunlight and start to ripen we make a daily pilgrimage out to the berry patch with our berry bowl to see how many are fat and red and ready to eat. We sit in the sun on a blanket, pick berries and the kids fight over the biggest berries to eat. When all the berries are picked and eaten we play outside until dad comes home and try to find a few unpicked berries to share with him. We’re a happy family in ma’s berry patch.

Futuring Reflection

A. How would you “grade” or assess Fox Becomes a Better Person, and School Train?

In assessing "Fox Becomes a Better Person" I would assess Hannah’s:

• Traditional Storytelling techniques
  o Use of body language
  o Memorization of the story
  o Skill at performing in front of a live audience
  o Using drawings to contribute to the story.

If I were to assess the "School Train" video for a Language Arts class I would do so on the following criteria:

• # of metaphors illustrated through
  § images
  § graphics
  § text
  
  
• The flow of the video:
  § Did it make sense?
  § Do I have a better understanding of how a School is like a Train after watching it?
  
  In assessing "School Train" for the technology and video editing skills I would assess student’s:
• Skill using stop animation.
• Skill using special effects and how well they contributed to the flow and objective of demonstrating how a school is like a train.
  
  
  B. What impacts could the developments portrayed in "epic 2015" have on your classroom, particularly with respect to things like pod casting?
  
• According to Epic 2015 the future holds for our students of today a “Living, Breathing, Media-Scape” in which anyone can publish anything on the internet. In regards to the implications of pod casting on the classroom of the future I think it could be:
  
  The Good:
  a. Integrated educational use of iPods and like devices in the classroom, which leads to varying methods of both teaching and learning and an increase to the growing body of knowledge and personal connectivity worldwide.
  The Bad:
  b. Educators banning the use of handheld devices in the classroom because of disruptions to lectures and other classroom activities. The world’s growing body of knowledge and connectivity slows because of little or no contributions from the world of academia.
  And The Ugly:
  c. IN response to the banning of hand held devices in classrooms students’ skill at concealing the use of such devices in classrooms increases, which leads to rise in cheating, bullying, harassment and disciplinary actions.
  
• O.K. I’m going to totally credit my husband, (who has made me watch way too many westerns lately), with the Clint Eastwood reference I’ve come up with here, but you get the point. As educators and more importantly educational policy makers, we must come to the collective realization that hand held devices are not going away and embrace how we can use them to our advantage in the classroom. Most of our students are already publishing their own content about their lives on YouTube, FaceBook and MySpace and with the growing popularity of these services it is obvious we can’t ignore it or block these at school forever. Teaching responsible use and internet safety alongside online publishing in schools should be a given if it is to be successful and safe for our students.
  
  
  C. How might you use Sabrina Journey as a model for something you would do with your own students?
  
• In my experience with teaching teens, anytime you let them incorporate their own personalities, styles and their own life experiences into an assignment the more they get hooked into whatever you are trying to teach. I’m thinking of using this as my first digital story assignment for my Leadership class to tackle because it would require students to research a topic they have no problem getting excited about, themselves!!
  
  
  Creating a digital story based on a student’s life would be a highly motivated project for student’s to explore:

1. Using digital video editing special effects.

2. Practice using the digital story format.

3.Their own lives including:

• Where have I been?
• Why am I here?
• What does the future hold?